1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to social games such as the games of checkers, chess, the game of goose or other games of the snakes and ladders type. The present invention is more particularly concerned with a storage box containing the pieces (cards, pawns, dice, and the like) and the boards (circuits, checkerboards and the like) for one or more of the above games.
2. Description of the Background
A storage box for a social game is generally composed of two symmetrical parts articulated to one another on one side of the box. This results in the two parts being placed one against the other when the box enclosing the game pieces therein is in the closed position, and the two parts of the box being layered out in the same plane and one placed as a prolongation of the other when the box is in the open position or playing position. When the box is in the open position, it provides a planar surface on which the game pieces can be placed.
This classical conception of a box for social games opened the horizon for the creation of a number of other box models aimed in particular to modifying the structure of the latter as a function of the nature of the games which they contain.
Thus, for example, the box for card games disclosed and represented by French Pat. No. 1,338,492, comprises a bottom pierced with holes centered over each card game. These holes permit the passage of a finger to extract the games from the box.
Another box, described and represented in the French Patent Applications Nos. 1,384,773 and 2,383,583, has the interior face of two symmetrical parts thereof covered with a magnetic metal. Thus, the game pieces can be magnetically maintained over said interior face.
Another box, which is the object of French Pat. No. 2,258,880 comports a detachable and reversible sliding rectangular plate on top of the external face of each of the two articulated symmetrical parts thereof. Each face of the two articulated symmetrical parts forms one half of the game in a manner such that in the open position or playing position the inside of the box offers a choice between two games whose boards are displayed on the visible face of the two sliding plaques. The two sliding plaques become adjacent for forming the entire gameboard.
Other prior improvements provided over the basic box for social games have adopted the general form of a book for easy storage between other books in a bookcase also permitting the discrete transportation of the game during the course of a trip.
Such book-boxes were described and represented in the German Pat. Nos. 31,082; 456,883 and in the British Pat. Nos. 559,597 and 1,436,453.
In view of the aforegoing, the present invention provides herein a novel conception of a book-box capable of offering a balanced equilibrium between the esthetic contribution of a book and the functional contribution of a box.
To this effect, the box of the invention for the storage of social games, adopts the general form of a book. A remarkable feature of the invention is that this said box is composed of one male and one female disociable components.
The male component is constituted by a salient portion forming the back of the book, and the female component is constituted by the two articulated symmetrical parts which form the box, and which delimit an aperture on the side of the articulation of said box in its closed position.
When the book-box is in the closed position, the salient portion of the male component is inserted in the aperture of the female component to maintain the book in the closed position. Thus, the presence of the salient part of the male component within said aperture restricts the degree of freedom of the articulation of the two symmetrical parts of the female component. The female component is thus maintained in the closed position.